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Codes & Standards

Language Codes: The ISO 639-1 Reference

All 183 two-letter ISO 639-1 language codes in one table, for hreflang tags, store translations, product feeds and Accept-Language headers.

Reference · July 29, 2026 · 6 min read

Small blank wooden letter tiles scattered on an off-white linen surface
Photo: nerissa's ring (BY) via Openverse

When an hreflang tag is rejected or a translation feed fails, the cause is nearly always a bad language code: a capital letter, three letters where two belong, or a locale where a plain language was expected. This page lists every two-letter ISO 639-1 code from the open dataset.

Data checked: July 24, 2026 against the open ISO 639-1 dataset. It contains 183 codes.

Language code vs locale

A code alone names the language. Pair it with a region and you get a locale, the value most feeds and hreflang tags want.

How a locale is built en ISO 639-1 language + US region (ISO 3166) = en-US locale, BCP 47 hreflang value Language is lowercase, region is uppercase. Source: ISO 639-1 dataset. Checked 2026-07-24.

Where these codes appear

PlaceWhat it uses
hreflang tagshreflang="en" or a locale like hreflang="en-gb"
HTML lang attribute<html lang="de">
Accept-Language headerThe browser sends codes like fr, en;q=0.8
Store translationsEach translated version is keyed to a language code
Product feedsGoogle and Meta content-language fields expect the code

All ISO 639-1 codes

Codes are two letters, lowercase. Names are copied verbatim from the dataset, including its listed synonyms.

CodeLanguage
aaAfar
abAbkhazian
aeAvestan
afAfrikaans
akAkan
amAmharic
anAragonese
arArabic
asAssamese
avAvaric
ayAymara
azAzerbaijani
baBashkir
beBelarusian
bgBulgarian
biBislama
bmBambara
bnBengali
boTibetan
brBreton
bsBosnian
caCatalan; Valencian
ceChechen
chChamorro
coCorsican
crCree
csCzech
cuChurch Slavic; Old Slavonic; Church Slavonic; Old Bulgarian; Old Church Slavonic
cvChuvash
cyWelsh
daDanish
deGerman
dvDivehi; Dhivehi; Maldivian
dzDzongkha
eeEwe
elModern Greek (1453-)
enEnglish
eoEsperanto
esSpanish; Castilian
etEstonian
euBasque
faPersian
ffFulah
fiFinnish
fjFijian
foFaroese
frFrench
fyWestern Frisian
gaIrish
gdGaelic; Scottish Gaelic
glGalician
gnGuarani
guGujarati
gvManx
haHausa
heHebrew
hiHindi
hoHiri Motu
hrCroatian
htHaitian; Haitian Creole
huHungarian
hyArmenian
hzHerero
iaInterlingua (International Auxiliary Language Association)
idIndonesian
ieInterlingue; Occidental
igIgbo
iiSichuan Yi; Nuosu
ikInupiaq
ioIdo
isIcelandic
itItalian
iuInuktitut
jaJapanese
jvJavanese
kaGeorgian
kgKongo
kiKikuyu; Gikuyu
kjKuanyama; Kwanyama
kkKazakh
klKalaallisut; Greenlandic
kmCentral Khmer
knKannada
koKorean
krKanuri
ksKashmiri
kuKurdish
kvKomi
kwCornish
kyKirghiz; Kyrgyz
laLatin
lbLuxembourgish; Letzeburgesch
lgGanda
liLimburgan; Limburger; Limburgish
lnLingala
loLao
ltLithuanian
luLuba-Katanga
lvLatvian
mgMalagasy
mhMarshallese
miMaori
mkMacedonian
mlMalayalam
mnMongolian
mrMarathi
msMalay
mtMaltese
myBurmese
naNauru
nbNorwegian Bokmål
ndNorth Ndebele
neNepali
ngNdonga
nlDutch; Flemish
nnNorwegian Nynorsk
noNorwegian
nrSouth Ndebele
nvNavajo; Navaho
nyChichewa; Chewa; Nyanja
ocOccitan (post 1500)
ojOjibwa
omOromo
orOriya
osOssetian; Ossetic
paPanjabi; Punjabi
piPali
plPolish
psPushto; Pashto
ptPortuguese
quQuechua
rmRomansh
rnRundi
roRomanian; Moldavian; Moldovan
ruRussian
rwKinyarwanda
saSanskrit
scSardinian
sdSindhi
seNorthern Sami
sgSango
siSinhala; Sinhalese
skSlovak
slSlovenian
smSamoan
snShona
soSomali
sqAlbanian
srSerbian
ssSwati
stSotho, Southern
suSundanese
svSwedish
swSwahili
taTamil
teTelugu
tgTajik
thThai
tiTigrinya
tkTurkmen
tlTagalog
tnTswana
toTonga (Tonga Islands)
trTurkish
tsTsonga
ttTatar
twTwi
tyTahitian
ugUighur; Uyghur
ukUkrainian
urUrdu
uzUzbek
veVenda
viVietnamese
voVolapük
waWalloon
woWolof
xhXhosa
yiYiddish
yoYoruba
zaZhuang; Chuang
zhChinese
zuZulu

Source: the open datasets/language-codes dataset (ISO 639-1). Checked July 2026.

Frequently asked questions

What is ISO 639-1?

ISO 639-1 is the international standard that gives each major language a two-letter code, such as en for English and de for German. It is the code used by hreflang tags, the HTML lang attribute and most localization systems.

What is the difference between a language code and a locale?

A language code is the language alone, like es. A locale pairs it with a region, like es-ES for Spain or es-MX for Mexico, following the BCP 47 format language-REGION. Product feeds and hreflang tags usually expect the locale pair when you sell to more than one region.

Should I use no, nb or nn for Norwegian?

Use nb if your text is Bokmal and nn if it is Nynorsk, since those are the two written forms. Use no only as a general fallback for Norwegian when the written form is not specified.

Why is Chinese only zh here?

ISO 639-1 codes the language, so Chinese is zh. Written variants are handled by adding a script or region in BCP 47, for example zh-Hans for Simplified and zh-Hant for Traditional. Those script subtags are not part of ISO 639-1 itself.

Sources & data

  1. ISO 639-1 language codes, open dataset (datasets/language-codes), data checked 2026-07-24
  2. language-codes.csv, raw dataset file used for this table, checked 2026-07-24
Cite this reference: Ecom Almanac (2026). “Language Codes: The ISO 639-1 Reference.” https://ecomalmanac.com/codes/language-codes-the-iso-639-1-reference/